Telipad?

Telipad

Our sister magazine and site TCT has been around for decades now and here at Personalize we've been running for close to a year. We see countless press releases materialise on the web — especially regarding the hype-based world of 3D printing — all of them offering new services or products, which we are duty-bound to report.

An email from a potential investor asking for more information on PrintForge 3D, sparked our curiosity. Nowhere can we find any evidence of PrintForge 3D existing prior to Massive Dynamics’ press release.

An attempt to get in touch with Massive Dynamics for further information failed owing to the lack of any contact details for marketing or publicity personnel. The only means of contacting Massive Dynamics is through its CEO Oscar Hines via an address in California and a telephone number that rings to voicemail. The company also has this handy little note on the site, serving to discourage any potential tricky questions being posed.

So we were led to wonder; what is this company, and why can we not get in contact?

What do we know about Massive Dynamics?

Massive Dynamics’ website says it is a "designer, developer and manufacturer of accessories and equipment for Apple, Android PC devices and long-range wireless technology".

As a publicly-traded business, its records have to be in the public domain and they can be found here. In its most recent report for the final quarter of 2012, the company said to date it has "limited operations and revenues" and has "incurred losses from operations".

The business is currently based in Cupertino, California, where it has a short-term lease for premises paying $1,027 per month.

Massive Dynamics’ products

In the five short months between October 2012 and February 2013 Massive Dynamics has "launched" or stated its involvement in five products:

1. Frogpad - a sticker and software that transforms your Apple TrackPad into a small keyboard/mouse combo. Though you cannot find any trace of the Frogpad on Massive Dynamics’ actual site, Massive Dynamics’ logo is plastered all over the Frogpad site.

2. Telipad - an interesting device that turns a tablet into a smartphone, apparently according to an advert (fig.1) they've sold up to 200,000 Telipads, though nobody has seen one and the guys at MacRumors find the concept hilarious. Another advert has a clearly Photoshopped image on an iPad mini. (fig.2)

4. First Web 4.0 Android Tablet - available in Early 2013 apparently, the product claims to receive data without touch or sound ... it has been delayed and nobody we can find has seen a prototype.

5. PrintForge3D - the latest item in Massive Dynamics’ portfolio apparently weighs just 19lbs and wowed people at a China Exhibition last week ... more on this later.

The hunt for Oscar Hines

CEO and president Oscar Hines took over from former CEO and president Don Calabria and secretary of the company Frank Hariton on August 31st 2012. Mr Hines is now sole director, CEO and corporate secretary and receives $5,000 per month for his services.

Mr Hines is 50 and has a corporate background. He served as the director for ITT Technical Institute (though we've seen him linked to a different ITT) and has also run businesses in the health and beauty industry.

We tried to contact ITT Technical Institute to ask about its former Director of the Year without success. Furthermore, attempts to find a means of contacting Don Calabria failed. However, we did speak to Frank Hariton, of Hariton Law in White Plains, New York.

Mr Hariton told our reporters that he had "never heard" of Oscar Hines and had not been involved in Massive Dynamics for "over a year" or "maybe two years" despite Mr Hines' taking over his role eight months ago. Mr Hariton had no contact information for Oscar Hines, nor did he know the company is involved in 3D printing, because it was in the cell phone tower business when he was involved in its operations.

Mr Hariton revealed he has had nothing to do with Massive Dynamics since the "vehicle company" that took it over paid him and Mr Calabria an "eight-figure sum" in the deal.

Mr Hines is a tricky man to pin down and numerous emails and calls to the various numbers and addresses have yielded nothing but radio silence.

Such an absence of Internet presence is hard to fathom, particularly as Mr Hines has an enthusiastic quote to share on each press release Massive Dynamics sends out, and they are being published with increasing regularity.

Real-View3D and the Chinese Machinery Fair

On March 12th, Massive Dynamics reported that it is working with "renowned technologist" Jonathan J Howard, the US Air Force-trained director of Real-View 3D.

"We are gearing up with an outstanding team of designers and engineers lead by JJ Howard. With a team of this pedigree we are excited about bringing our customers the very best innovations," Mr Hines remarked.

Attempts to contact Mr Howard and his team at Real-View 3D in Rochester, NY, failed.

Moreover, on March 18th, Massive Dynamics revealed it showcased its 3D Rapid Prototyping PrintForge 3D printer at the 13th Annual China Machinery Fair in Xi-an. Our team of industry experts travel internationally to expos throughout the year, and yet they have never heard of the Annual China Machinery Fair in Xi-an, nor could we find any website or news about the event. Another lead evaporated.

Kylemore Corp

Editorial interest at TCT and Personalize gave us license to put some time into examining Massive Dynamics.

Our hunt to find out who is backing Massive Dynamics led us to Kylemore Corp, which bought an enormous 90 per cent stake in the company right before Oscar Hines took over from Don Calabria and Frank Haritan - and it is possible this is the company that provided both gentlemen with their "eight-figure" payoff.

The top result in a Google search for Kylemore heralds this article from Promotion Stock Secrets, in which Kylemore is reported as being an offshore company in the Marshall Islands – a tax haven. The article outlines concerns regarding Chimera Energy Corp and its involvement with Kylemore. Further research into Chimera and Kylemore uncovered this feature from Seeking Alpha.

The mythological hybrid

Chimera - which is a mythological beast comprising of bits of lion, serpent and goat - is the name given to a company associated with fracking and energy. It was suspended by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US on October 25th 2012 "because of questions regarding the accuracy of statements by Chimera in press releases to investors concerning, among other things, the company's business prospects and agreements".

Chimera is the name of the nefarious drug central to the plot of Mission Impossible II. Massive Dynamics is similar to the name of the overarching corporation in Fringe — but this tenuous link to popular culture is being treated by us as coincidence. However, there are numerous other similarities between Chimera and Massive Dynamics that set alarm bells ringing.

Like Massive Dynamics, Chimera had a sole officer —Charles Grob — and was given significant funding by Kylemore in the form of a $100,000 loan at 15 per cent interest in 2011. Kylemore bought 90 per cent of Massive Dynamics's shares last year. Massive Dynamics also received a $250,000 loan last year and it was agreed with its unnamed lender that its credit agreement be cancelled on January 15th 2013, rolling the arrangement into a new agreement not to exceed $500,000.

If you would like to see Massive Dynamics' share activity for yourself, see this graph. Since Kylemore's involvement in Massive Dynamics, its stocks rallied from $0.0493 to $1.01 in a single day in September 2012. Shares have since leveled off, still those who speculated at the $0.0493 rate have profited handsomely.

Like Massive Dynamics, Chimera has virtual offices and there are startling similarities between Massive Dynamics’ investor page and the investor page on Chimera's website.

Furthermore, both companies' websites are registered by Domainsbyproxy.com — a service preventing the registration of IP addresses and domain names from being traced — and both have published press releases regularly via Business Wire. This week Massive Dynamics has published a press release every day — a modus operandi that Seeking Alpha highlighted in relation to Chimera.

Finally, Chimera — also a former shell company — is registered in corporate tax haven Nevada, like Massive Dynamics, where incorporated companies do not need to disclose shareholder identities and corporate offices may be held by a single person.

So what exactly is Massive Dynamics?

Seeking Alpha's report lambasts Chimera and interrelated Nova Mining Corp as "scams" and the author's conclusion is to stay away from both businesses, as they have "no tangible value".

Given the total inability to contact anybody related to Massive Dynamics and its work today, the worrying data in its last quarterly figures, not to mention the links with Kylemore and the similarities between our findings and Seeking Alpha's damning report of Chimera, we feel obliged to publish our findings for our readers to interpret.

Massive Dynamics is welcome to contact our editorial offices with any comment on its business and developments.

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